


Tiramisu

by fakebodies



Category: Face/Off (1997)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of depression and disordered eating, its just Castor being a good big bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 04:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18886867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakebodies/pseuds/fakebodies
Summary: People who hurt Pollux? He could take care of them, but this? All Castor can do is watch his brother sink further and further into depression. He's taking a shot in the dark.





	Tiramisu

Tiramisu— a dessert from Italy, coffee-flavored, usually with cocoa powder on top. Eaten cold; he knows that too.

He didn’t know what made him pick it up that first time, he’d just seen the cake in a bakery display. Light, fluffy, sweet-looking, and Pollux needed to eat. Not just that he was hungry, no, then he never would’ve glanced twice at the dessert. Pollux was starving to death, bit by fragile, precious bit. Castor grabbed the cake and paid for it in cash; his baby brother is worth the risk of someone in the little shithole recognizing him.

Pollux had fallen into a depression so fucking bad just the thought of it made Castor seethe with rage. People, people he could fucking kill. He could break their bones until they screamed if they laid a finger on his bro— hell, he’d do it if they so much as looked at Pollux the wrong way. This, though? This is something Castor can’t fight. He can do fuck all about it except force his stick-thin brother to swallow the little orange antidepressants Dietrich had hooked them up with. It seemed like Pollux was doing a little better, being rebuilt piece by piece as the drugs worked their way through his system, regular as clockwork. Now, Castor didn’t have to rub Pollux’s throat to get him to swallow the pills like an uppity cat; his baby bro took them willingly, thank every higher power Castor didn’t fucking believe in.

Even with the aid of the precious little pills, Pollux still hadn’t started to eat, though. He’d stopped, only eating when Castor forced him to choke down some crackers, sitting there and staring at him until he gave in and ate. Castor knew enough, had looked up enough about this kind of overbearing mental bullshit to know a refusal to eat happened when it got bad-bad. The kind of bad mental state Pollux had fallen into, so he’d hoped the pills’d help with more than just his brother’s mood. They hadn’t.

The tiramisu feels too-light and stupid in his hands, but it’s a peace offering he has to make. Pollux, his blood, his brother… the one thing in the entire world Castor cared about. He was lying on the bed in the same spot Castor had left him four hours ago, the shallow rise and fall of his rib cage the only sign he’s even alive— his eyes are empty, far-away behind the thin silver glasses. He shuts and locks the door behind himself. Castor has an image to uphold, after all, and he doesn’t need any smartass comments about his bro either. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he rests his hand on Pollux’s knee; the gesture earns him a look from the gaunt man.

“It’s bad today, huh bro?”

The nod he gets in return is so shallow only Castor would’ve seen it, having spent so much of his life reading his paranoid brother’s gestures. He doesn’t even get admonished for using ‘bro,’ which makes Castor’s gut twist.

“You took your pill?” he asks, and gets another near-imperceptible nod in response. Good enough.

“Got you something.”

That earns him a real look, full attention with a little shine behind the eyes. Castor smiles— the real one only Pollux got to see, and his baby brother even manages to sit up a little. Castor holds out the tiramisu; Pollux opens the plastic carton holding the square of cake. That little shine brightens even more, and Castor hands him the plastic-wrapped spork he’d salvaged out of his glove box, a remnant of some long-forgotten takeout meal. Pollux tears the spork out of its wrapper, taking one tiny, hesitant bite. That bite is followed by another, and another, until the tiramisu is gone. All gone, done, finished, bye-fucking-bye. It’s better than Castor ever could’ve hoped for, better than he ever dreamed, and Pollux’s tiny, tired smile is the most incredible thing he’s ever seen in his goddamn life.

That tiramisu is followed by another, and that one’s followed by a ham and turkey sandwich, followed by pasta, until Castor has his baby brother back, bright and shining, brilliant like a star. Pollux, the quiet foil to Castor’s razor-sharp wit, the one good thing in Castor’s fucked up little world, whole again.

* * *

Pollux still takes the little orange pills, regular as clockwork. Sometimes bits and pieces of the withering depression shine through in untied shoelaces or rumpled shirts, but Castor is always there to fix them, until Archer’s fucking men pin his bro down to the floor and cuff him. The pitiful, querying call of his nickname is enough to make Castor’s blood run ice cold, but if he wants to save Pollux’s skin he’ll have to save his own first.

Later, Archer’s face leaving him twitchier and even more irritable than normal, he will stride into the interrogation room and chastise Pollux for not giving up their own secrets. The sharp twist of annoyance will fade, though, as soon as he sees the square of half-eaten tiramisu— a surefire sign that everything is right with his world.

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on 2x4swrites.tumblr.com


End file.
